July 11, 2001

THE
RAPE OF JAPANAnother Okinawa outrage, and more Japan-bashing

Are
Americans barbarians? The Japanese have every right
to think so. It wasn't until Japanese Prime Minister
Junichero Koizumi and his government made a concerted
effort to pressure Washington that the US military turned
over one US Airforce Staff Sergeant Timothy Woodland
to Japanese authorities. Woodland is accused of raping
a Japanese woman on the hood of a car near an Okinawa
nightclub: he reportedly admits to the sexual activity,
but claims it was consensual. Of course, having sex
on top of a car is how they do things in America, down
in the 'hood – so to speak – but in Japan this is unusual,
to say the least.

AN
AMERICAN EPIDEMIC

What
is not
unusual in Japan is the
news that yet
another rape has been committed by an American serviceman:
Okinawa, the site of an American military base, has long been
the epicenter of a crime epidemic. Worse, the lawlessness
of these animalistic Americans has been tolerated and even
excused by some military commanders, such
as Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston, whose arrogance
caused a furor on Okinawa earlier this year. I have written
on this subject – rape
as a metaphor of empire – before, but what is significant
about this latest incident is that it takes places against
a backdrop of American grousing.

OH,
IT'S SO UNFAIR!

Yes,
the Americans are complaining – about the "unfairness"
of the Japanese legal system! It was four days until
the American military authorities, after tense high-level
negotiations, agreed to hand over the suspect: their hesitation
was reportedly due to the fear that Woodland's "rights" might
be violated. Numerous articles in the American media, such
as the New York Times, reporting the back-and-forth
between Washington and Tokyo, invariably mentioned the alleged
shortcomings of the Japanese legal system with a nearly audible
cluck of disapproval. Tom Shanker, author of the Times
piece, clearly doesn't like what he is describing:

"Under
Japanese law, suspects may be held for up to 21 days before
being formally charged. During this period, the police often
conduct high- pressure interrogation sessions to gain confessions,
United States diplomats and military officials in Japan said.
Human rights groups in Japan and abroad have long criticized
such tactics."

SETTING
A PRECEDENT

That
bit about "human rights groups in Japan" was a pretty good
touch: see, even those Japs realize what a bad time Sergeant
Woodland is in for. From the way Shanker tells it, Timothy
Woodland may be the Pentagon's version of Mumia
Abu Jamal, a victim of injustice whose cause they were
willing to go to the barricades for. The State Department
wanted to hand him over, but chief warlord Donald Rumsfeld
resisted on the grounds that it would set a "precedent." The
US-Japan Security Treaty stipulates that the US doesn't have
to turn anyone over until an indictment is handed down: but
without questioning Woodland, the Japanese could hardly have
issued an indictment. Rumsfeld is right, of course: the hand-over
did set a precedent: for Americans to follow the rule
of law (and simple human decency) in Japan is truly unprecedented.

CULTURE
CLASH

But
the campaign to "Free Timothy Woodland" didn't give up so
easily. Shanker tells us that "one Pentagon official said
the United States was concerned that if Sergeant Woodland
were transferred to the local authorities before being indicted,
he would have no guarantee of having a lawyer or even an interpreter
with him during questioning, and that the authorities could
conduct their questioning in any manner and for any length
of time." It is touching, really, that the boys in the Pentagon
have finally been bitten by the "human rights" bug: surely
this is a sign of the times. What we are dealing with here,
however, is not conflicting legal principles but a culture
clash so profound it can never be bridged.

GETTING
AWAY WITH IT

You
see, in Japan, the means by which prosecutors obtain convictions
is by first obtaining a confession. As
a piece the Los Angeles Times explains: "Prosecutors
generally are reluctant to indict a suspect without an admission
of guilt, upon which they depend to build their case." Shame,
the admission of guilt, and the ritual of atonement are all
of vast importance in Japanese culture: a criminal, if he
is guilty, is supposed to admit it, and if he doesn't then
chances are he's innocent. There is a purity in this view
of justice, an innocence entirely alien to our own shameless
culture, where Getting Away With It is a way of life. The
US has been getting away with the rape of Japan for over half
a century, but now it
looks as if Nippon's national humiliation is about to come
to an end.

UP
FROM DEFEATISM

A
committee of the Japanese Diet adopted a resolution today
[Tuesday] demanding that the government renegotiate the terms
of the US-Japan Security pact, which governs the deployment
of US troops on Japanese soil. The resolution is critical
of the US military for failing to prevent the crime wave emanating
from the American military presence, especially in Okinawa,
and demands the swift hand-over of accused criminals in the
future. The same renewed sense of national self-esteem that
galvanized the Japanese public into supporting Koizumi, "the
oddball" who dared challenge the entrenched party-archs of
the Liberal Democratic Party, is here asserting itself. The
LDP had governed the country uninterruptedly (except for a
brief interlude a few years ago) since Japan's World War II
defeat, and they had come to represent the very concept of
defeat in the Japanese mind. Faced with a moral as well as
an economic crisis, the Japanese shook off the LDP as casually
as a dog shakes off a flea. They won't shake off the Americans
quite so easily, but this is a start.

A
TEXTBOOK CASE

The
development of market nationalism in Japan is proceeding at
such a rapid pace that it has the near-perfection of a "thought
experiment," a textbook case that neatly illustrates the principle
at work. On the one hand, there is the economic imperative
of getting Japan out from under the burden of a bureaucratized
state capitalism, freeing up the system, and making Japanese
industry competitive by adhering to market principles. On
the other hand, there is the cultural imperative of redefining
(or perhaps rediscovering) what it means to be Japanese, other
than something to be apologized for. For fifty years, obsequious
Japanese politicians kowtowed to their American masters, abjuring
an army, and adopting pacifism as the official ideology.

A
DIFFERENT SORT

But
Koizumi, as the agent – indeed, the virtual embodiment – of
the new Japanese self-assertiveness, is an altogether different
sort. "I hope the United States, understanding emotions here,
will make an appropriate decision [to hand over Woodland]
quickly," said
Koizumi after returning from his first trip abroad as
Prime Minister  and clearly he wasn't taking no for
an answer. Japan's Defense chief, Gen. Nakatan, seemed especially
peeved, warning of "an escalation of emotions" unless the
United States acted soon. Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka put
in a call to Colin Powell, politely but firmly requesting
a swift handover of the accused rapist. This was finally accomplished,
but you can bet the grousing of the Americans will continue,
and even grow louder. Indeed, it's already started: the hate
campaign against Japan, that is.

PUNK
ROCKERS GO VRWC (JAPANESE STYLE)

While
the Koizumi revolution has generally gotten good reviews in
the Western media, there is a certain stand-offishness about
their endorsement, a tentative quality that amounts to outright
wariness. Yes, we all know Koizumi's going to be good for
the Japanese economy, at least in the long run, and this will
be good for the West: but what's all this about Japanese rearmament?
The resentful undertone of all this praise is just now getting
louder. The idea that Japan might come to challenge the terms
of the US military occupation scares not only the Pentagon,
but also the pro-China lobby in the US, which hates and fears
anything that even remotely smacks of Japanese nationalism.
Alongside the extensive coverage of the Koizumi phenomenon,
a parallel story has been developing, and its headline might
well read: "Right
Wing Rising," as a San Francisco Chronicle piece
proclaimed, complaining in a subhead that "Japanese nationalists
use comics, film, punk rock to recruit youth." Oh, I get it:
another Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, only this time a foreign
one – and all the more sinister for it.

TOJO
WITH GREEN HAIR

The
attempting smearing of Koizumi as a right-wing extremist,
a kind of latter-day Tojo, is occurring right on schedule,
as the Chronicle piece makes all too clear. We open
with a short interview with one Kousaku Hino, identified as
the head of a rightist organization, Issui-Kai
– an error right off the bat that ought to warn us of what
is to come. For the "head" of Issui-Kai, which is indeed a
rightist group, is not Mr. Hino, but one Kunio
Suzuki. But never mind that, for we are just beginning
to describe the sheer scope of the San Francisco Chronicle's
funhouse mirror portrait of the new Japanese nationalism.
No, it's not Tojo-lookalikes, but punk rockers with green
hair and readers of the mass-produced comic books called manga:
it is, in short, a conspiracy of youth.

IN
DEFENSE OF YOSHINORI KOBAYASHI

The
cartoonist Yoshinori
Kobayashi is singled out for his "revisionism"
on the subject of Japanese responsibility for World War II.
His cartoon, "On
Taiwan," is depicted as excusing Japanese involvement
in the procurement of "comfort women" for occupying Japanese
troops, but all Kobayashi points out is that poverty and not
coercion was the main factor in the booming wartime prostitution
business, and that the pimps were native born. Kobayashi and
others, rather than "glorifying Japan's role in World War
II," as the author of this piece asserts, merely puts it in
perspective. Backed up against the wall by the European colonial
powers, subjected to an oil embargo, and the imposition of
an economic straitjacket that had to be broken out of, Japan
is depicted by Kobayashi and his youthful admirers as having
fought World War II in defense of Asia for the Asians – a
not unreasonable view, and certainly an understandable one
from the Japanese perspective. Indeed, such American historians
as Robert
Stinnett and Thomas
Fleming would have no quarrel with the basic premise behind
this analysis: that the US, in alliance with the Brits, the
Dutch, and the French, was determined to preserve and protect
Western dominance in Eastasia, which is why FDR was so eager
to get into the war through the "back door."

THE
BOB KERREY DEFENSE

Kobayashi
acknowledges that the Japanese militarists were no angels,
but asks how long does Japan have to apologize and abase itself?
In arguing that the guerrilla warfare conducted by the Chinese
Nationalists and their Communist allies made it almost impossible
to distinguish between civilians and military personnel, the
Japanese revisionists are invoking the Bob Kerrey defense
– acceptable in the case of an American who also happens to
be a prominent Democratic "war hero" and would-be presidential
candidate. But you're out of luck if you're Japanese: in that
case, you're a "war criminal," and you had better hang your
head in shame forever.

SPEAK,
MEMORY

The
Chronicle piece goes into great detail, weaving together
a whole tapestry of supposedly insidious right-wing tendencies
and organizations, and tying them all to Koizumi – and to
Bush, who is seen as favoring "the most revolting politicians,"
in the phrase of one leftist professor cited by the author.
Speaking of the author, Reese
Erlich: when I saw his byline, a whole panoply of memories
was conjured in my mind, coming back to me unbidden. Well,
well, well, I thought, it's my old adversary from the early
1980s anti-draft movement in San Francisco. As an operative
for a student libertarian group, I was involved in the Mobilization
Against the Draft (MAD), and no, there wasn't a draft, it
had been done away with after the Vietnam era, but they were
threatening to bring it back, and so it was decided to hold
a series of demonstrations just in case they got any bright
ideas. Every political group active on the campuses gravitated,
it seemed, to this project, and the planning meetings were
like rallies in themselves, so numerous were the different
organizations, each with its own representative. Of course,
most of them were nutball leftists of one kind or another:
Marxists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, and Maoists – and it was
good old Reese Erlich who represented a rather exotic variety
of this last group, a pro-China Marxist-Leninist sect called
the League
for Revolutionary Struggle (LRS). Their newspaper, Unity,
was filled with paeans to the wisdom and beneficence of the
Communist Party of China, and they always qualified their
support for peace with the warning that we had to "guard against
Soviet hegemonism."

SOONER
OR LATER

Oh
yes, I remember Reese Erlich all too well. It was he, in league
with his disciplined cadre of pro-China fifth columnists,
who tried desperately to create as much havoc as possible,
to raise every leftwing cause as a matter of high principle
that had to be endorsed by the entire coalition. It was Reese
who led the effort to exclude libertarians from the MAD organization
on account of their political incorrectness. If there was
trouble at a meeting, then at the bottom of it – nine times
out of ten – there was good old Reese. Other members of the
coalition were suspicious of this habitual disruption, which
seemed driven by a half-hidden agenda: after all, it was well-known
that the pro-China "leftists" in the US, taking their cues
from Beijing, were then calling for an accelerated US military
buildup, and in one memorable pamphlet, aptly titled Sooner
Or Later, the pro-China Commies advocated not only more
money for the military but also argued for the resumption
of the draft! To some of us, at least, it was clear that Erlich
had been sent in by the LRS to sabotage our anti-draft efforts.

JOURNEY
THROUGH THE PAST

I
called Erlich's editor over at the Chronicle, brought
up some of the errors made in the article – and then politely
inquired as to whether he knew anything about the author's
political background. Oh, but all that was years ago,
and "he's a different kind of journalist now" – but is he?
Erlich ends his Chronicle piece by conjuring up the
image of a Japanese punk rock singer who declares that, since
she doesn't believe in anything, she might as well worship
the Emperor as a god:

"Meanwhile,
punk rocker [Karin]
Amamiya is working to broaden her appeal. She recently
formed a new band that continues to sing praises of the emperor
and Japanese rearmament. 'The old group, Revolutionary Truth,
sounded too right-wing,' she said. 'The new group has a better
name – Greater Japanese Terrorism.'"

PEOPLE'S
DAILY–
SAN FRANCISCO EDITION

The
idea that the Japanese Right – personified not only by some
green-haired Japanese punk rocker, but by the Japanese Prime
Minister – is bent on exporting "Greater Japanese Terrorism"
is tailor-made for Japanophobes like Erlich, whose view of
Japanese nationalism just coincidentally happens
to resemble the one found in People's
Daily. It is typical of the heavy-handed propaganda
that old Commies like Erlich specialize in that Ms. Amamiya's
attempt to be provocative  this childlike play-acting
whose harmlessness is underscored by a distinctly punkish
sense of self-parody  is held up as some kind of sinister
threat. People's Daily couldn't have done much worse.

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